FUTURE SELF
How to write a letter to your future self
To write a letter to your future self, pick the date she will open it, describe where you are right now, say plainly what you want, name what scares you, make one promise, and sign off. Seal it and set a reminder. One year ahead is the most useful horizon: far enough for real change, close enough that she still feels like you.
Below are the six steps, 25 prompts, three full example letters, a fill-in template, and the part most guides skip: the letter she writes back.
Why write to your future self
Most of us treat our future self like a stranger. Research by psychologist Hal Hershfield and colleagues found that people who feel more connected to who they will be make more patient, future-friendly choices, and that the brain responds to thinking about your future self a bit like thinking about someone else (Ersner-Hershfield et al., 2009; Hershfield, 2011).
A letter closes that gap. It makes her a person you are talking to, with a date and an address. It also does three practical things:
- It names what you want. Writing forces a vague wish into a sentence.
- It records who you are now. Memory edits the past. The letter keeps the real version.
- It gives your feelings somewhere to go. Writing about what you think and feel has been studied for decades as a way to make sense of experience (Pennebaker, 1997).
How to write a letter to your future self in 6 steps
- Date it and choose the opening day. Write today's date at the top and the day she opens it under it. One year, your next birthday, or the far side of a change you can see coming.
- Describe where you are now. Where you live, what a weekday looks like, what is on your mind at night. Include one ordinary detail she will have forgotten: the mug you use, the song on repeat.
- Say what you want. Not what you should want. Two or three Desires, each in a plain sentence: "I want work that has my name on it."
- Name what you're afraid of. The fear you would not say at dinner. It is the part she will most want to read.
- Make one promise. Something you control. "I will ask for the raise before March." "I will stop answering emails on Sundays."
- Sign off like you mean it. A line only you would understand. Then seal it, store it somewhere you will not lose it, and put the opening date in your calendar.
What to write about: 25 prompts
Pick five. Answering all 25 makes a list, not a letter.
Right now
- What does a normal Tuesday look like for me right now?
- What am I spending too much time thinking about?
- What am I proud of that nobody has noticed?
- What do I want more of this year?
- What am I tolerating that I shouldn't?
What I want
- What do I want my work to feel like by the time you read this?
- Where do I want to be living?
- Who do I want closer, and who do I want further away?
- What would make me feel rich that isn't money?
- What do I want to have tried, even if it didn't work?
Fears and hopes
- What am I most afraid you'll tell me?
- What am I hoping you'll have stopped apologizing for?
- What's the risk I keep almost taking?
- What would I do if I knew you'd be proud either way?
- What do I hope you've forgiven me for?
Promises
- What one habit am I starting this month?
- What am I saying no to so I can say yes to you?
- Who will I ask for help?
- How will I know I'm on track by the halfway point?
- What will I do on the days I want to quit?
Questions for her
- Are you still friends with the people I love right now?
- What surprised you most about this year?
- Did the thing I'm worried about matter?
- What do you wish I'd done sooner?
- What are you doing this weekend?
Want more? We wrote 75 questions to ask your future self and a set of future self journaling prompts.
Letter to your future self: 3 full examples
Example 1: to me, one year from now
Dear me, October next year,
Right now I'm at the kitchen table at 6:40 a.m. because it's the only hour nobody needs anything from me. I'm thirty-one. I work in a job that's fine, which is the problem. I want to be doing the design work I keep doing for free for friends, and getting paid for it. I'm afraid I'm too late, and that I'll talk about this for another five years. So here's my promise: by spring, three paying clients, even small ones. I'll put two hours into it every Saturday morning. If you're reading this and it didn't happen, I hope you know why, and I hope it was a good reason. If it did, buy the good coffee. You earned it. Love, me.
Example 2: to me at 35
Dear thirty-five,
I'm twenty-nine and everyone around me is getting engaged, promoted or pregnant, sometimes all three. I want a life that's actually mine, not a checklist. I want to have lived abroad for at least a year. I want a friend group that gets together on purpose. I'm scared I'll choose comfort every single time. My promise: I'll apply for the Lisbon transfer when it opens, and I'll say yes to things that make me nervous in the good way. Tell me: did you learn Portuguese? Do you still read in the bath? Are you kinder to yourself than I am? I hope so. Yours, twenty-nine.
Example 3: to me, on the other side of a big change
To the woman who left,
I'm writing this a week before I tell him I'm moving out. My hands are shaking a bit as I type. I want a home that's quiet in the way I like, not in the way that means nobody's talking. I want my evenings back. I'm afraid of being lonely, of money, of the look on my mum's face. I promise to call Jo every Sunday, to set up my own account this week, and to not go back just because it's easier. When you read this, I hope your flat has plants in it. I hope you sleep through the night. I'm proud of you already. Me.
Letter to your future self template
Fill the brackets, then read it out loud once before you seal it.
Dear [name or age], [opening date],
Right now I'm [where you are, what time it is, one ordinary detail]. My days look like [a normal weekday].
What I want most is [Desire one], [Desire two], and [Desire three].
What scares me is [the honest fear].
I promise to [one action you control] by [date].
When you read this, I hope [what you hope is true for her]. I want to ask you [one question].
[Sign-off only you would understand], [your name]
Flip it: a letter from your future self
Here is the step most guides leave out. Once you have written to her, write her reply. Put yourself a year ahead, in the life you described, and answer your own letter in her voice.
This is not just a nice idea. In a study by psychologists Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson, students who wrote to their future selves and then wrote back as their future selves felt more connected to who they would become than students who wrote only one letter, and reported more career planning a month later (Chishima & Wilson, 2020).
How to write it
- Write in her present tense: "I'm writing from the studio."
- Answer your questions from the original letter directly.
- Tell her what it took. One real step, one hard moment.
- Say what she is grateful you did.
Example reply
Dear thirty-one,
I'm writing this from the desk by the window, between client calls. Yes, calls, plural. You got the three clients by April, and then a fourth found you through the second. The Saturday mornings worked. Some of them were miserable and you did them anyway, and that's the part I want to thank you for. You were right to be scared and wrong about being too late. The good coffee is in the cupboard. Keep going. Love, me.
She is not a stranger. She is you, a year further in, writing back.
When to open it, and how to send it
- Paper: seal it in an envelope, write the opening date on the front, and keep it with documents you look at once a year.
- Email: several free services will deliver an email to you on a future date. Use an address you will still have.
- Calendar: whichever you choose, add a reminder on the opening day with the letter's location in the note.
When you open it, read it twice. Then write the next one.
Do it with Wildly Mine: hear the reply as a Story
A Wildly Mine Story is the letter from your future self, read out loud. Add a Desire, describe an ordinary moment in the life you want, and the app writes it into a Story set in that life and narrates it in the Voice you choose: Clara, Sage or Luna. You hear her day, not a to-do list.
Start with the Desire from your letter. Each day Today prepares four Stories from your Desires, and the 21-day Challenge gives you one Story a day with a place to write a reflection, which is a short letter in itself. Personal Stories are written with AI from the details you choose to share, after you give permission. They are imagined possibilities, not predictions or promises. The included Story library, Affirmations and the 21-day Challenge are free; Plus adds personal Stories and Affirmations made for you and new narration in your Voice, within daily allowances.
Get Wildly Mine and hear her write back.
Questions, answered
What should I write in a letter to my future self?
Write where you are now, what you want, what you are afraid of, one promise you control, and a question you want answered. Ordinary details make it worth rereading.
How far in the future should I write to myself?
One year is the most useful: long enough for real change, short enough to keep you accountable. Five or ten years works for big-picture reflection, but the promises get vaguer.
What is the purpose of writing a letter to your future self?
It makes what you want specific, records who you are now, and helps you feel connected to the person you are becoming. Research links feeling connected to your future self with more future-friendly choices.
How long should a letter to your future self be?
One to two pages is plenty. A short, honest letter beats a long one you never finish.
How do I write a letter from my future self?
Imagine yourself on the opening day, living the life you described. Write back in the present tense, answer your own questions, say what it took to get there and what she is grateful you did.
